The Daily News opinion blog

Main menu

Post navigation

‘Never again’ seems likelier to happen again

As Israel nears her 60th birthday, this is major food for thought: Hamas airs a “documentary” showing that Jews supposedly plotted the Holocaust to weed out the weak and gain international sympathy. They release it just a couple of weeks before the day when the world remembered the victims of the Holocaust. The media largely ignores this outrage, because Hamas represents the “persecuted” Palestinians. I write about the lessons we need to learn from this — with the insight of my pal Valerie Harper, who took her amazing Golda Meir character to the big screen recently — in my column this week:

“Sadly, as we marked this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, ‘never again’ seems further from reach than ever. Jews continue to be targeted, be it in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, or the repeated desecration of Jewish graves in Berlin. Holocaust denial has became accepted as legitimate thought in some circles and has become a foreign-policy talking point in the regimes of others.And when I, a gentile columnist, have written about the outrage of Holocaust denial, I’ve received far too many letters defending the deniers.

‘Jews don’t care about anybody but the Jews,’ wrote one Canadian reader. ‘…Only a fool would trust a Jew to play fair with gentiles. … They’re laughing at you for falling for their lies. Don’t be such a sap.’

Hamas is doing its best to stoke that disbelief in the true nature of the Holocaust, while fanning the flames of hatred for the Jewish people.

On April 18, Al-Aqsa TV – which brought Palestinian kiddies Farfour the martyr mouse and Assoud, the Bugs Bunny rip-off who vowed to ‘eat’ the Jews – aired an ‘educational’ program that accused Jews of perpetuating the Holocaust to weed out the weak among their ranks and simultaneously gain international sympathy.

This, of course, walks a fine line with Hamas’ contention that the Holocaust never happened…”

And if you want to be even more depressed, read the reader comments, which include this gem from a woman in Redondo Beach:

“Holocaust ‘denial’ is a misnomer. Nobody denies the Holocaust. Some people have noticed irregularities with some aspects of the official holocaust story and have raised questions. For example, why haven’t the mass graves at the death camps been opened up to estimate the number of victims and see what we can find out about who they are or how they died? Why hasn’t anybody demanded information about a relative they believe was murdered in one of the death camps? How exactly did the gas chambers work and how did they dispose of all the bodies?

All reasonable questions but instead of answers, you get called a bigot and anti-semite for asking them. For that reason, people will continue questioning the holocaust. It’s not bigotry that leads people to holocaust revision, it’s simply curiosity.”

To which one reader from New York responded:

“Christina, I could not agree with you more. It’s not bigotry to find the truth. The real bigots here are the stiff-neck mutated counterfeit jews that reasons with their own vile vehement that spews forth without intelligences, along with their brain dead following..”

Feeling truly ill yet? There was a positive comment over at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to lift one’s spirits (the last line cracked me up, anyway):

“I’m surprised the PI let Bridget Johnson’s opinion on here.

The popular opinion on the far left is that the Jewish people and Israel are the root cause of all violence, poverty and hate in the Arab world. Without Jews, none of it would exist.

I’m sure they would have felt sorry for them as they were being cooked early in the late 30s, had they been around to see it, but now that they have recovered, prospered and are white and wealthy, they are a target.

Hamas could fry babies, and they do in a sense, and they would be the noble ones to the far left, because they aren’t wealthy.

Keep the faith Bridget and if your letters smell of lattes and incense, save yourself some grief and throw them away.”